In The Shadows
by GalaXion24
Summary: The story of a ghost operative, but not a normal one by any means! Unlike most, he remembers his parents and dreams of getting back to them. He get's semt on his first mison and things quickly escalate...
1. Introduction

DISCLAIMER:

I do not own starcraft. Or anything in it.

(duh, why would I write fanfiction about it if I owned it)

"speech"

_thoughts_

"_telepathy"_

**Chapter-1:Introduction**

XR-243673 was no ordinary ghost operative. He was always smart for his age. They couldn't break him at the ghost academy, but they never knew that. He no longer remembered his name, but he still had memories of his parents. When he was 6 years old, he was taken to the ghost academy. Now the thing is, unlike most kids, he thought that if he behaved nicely, then one day he can go see his parents. When he got older and understood more, he just acted along. They all thought they broke him, but the never did. His only dream was to one day leave. He knew all rouge ghosts were hunted down, but he didn't care. Anyways, today would be his first mission. Zerg were attacking a planet and he was sent with the reinforcements to aid the defence of the planet.

"Why do we need one of these spooks here!" asked some random marine. He couldn't be more than 17.

"Shut up and get to the dropship, Charles!"an older man, probably in is forties, commanded.

"Fine!"the marine, charles, shouted and then mumbled something about ghosts being freaky.

"C'mon Charles! It's not that bad! They just follow orders and don't give a shit if you insult them so they won't kill you. And why does it bother you if they are freaky! Said an other guy, a firebat.

They now reached the hangar. It was full of fighters, dropships, vehicles... everything.

"Where are we supposed to go?!"whined charles again.

"Stop whining or I'll burn your ass" said the firebat.

"Very funny Rob! Haha..."

"There! D-51! That's ours!" said an other marine. There were 4 marines and a firebat.

The quickly got on.

"Wasn't there supposed to be a ghost here?"asked the 3rd marine.

"I am here" said XR-243673.

"Woah! Now that is creepy" said the 3rd marine.

"Told you so." started Charles.

"You have a problem with me Charles?" asked the ghost.

"What? I didn't say that! And how do you know my name?!"

"I'm a telepath, you idiot" this ghost did seem more social than the others...

"Keep out of my mind!"

"Fine by me"

_Why does he even wear the helmet, it's not like he needs it now..._

"I can take it off if you like, Louis" he said to the 4th marine who did not speak much.

"Wha? Umm.. you don't have to..."

When the ghost took it off, they were all shocked. It wasn't a hardened war veterans face.

It was a 17 year old teenager's slightly excited face. This was the most 'human' looking ghost they have ever seen. He actually had emotions!

"What? Why does everyone stare at me whenever I take my helmet off!" He whined in an annoyed-of -the-world tone."It's annoying! I'm not an animal in a zoo!"

_He's young. _Thought Louis.

_This one isn't even that creepy! He has emotions and isn't a mindless killer!_

"True, Charles"

"So umm.. What's your name? I mean, you know ours so mind telling us yours?" asked the 3rd marine, Daniel.

"I don't remember."

"WHAT?!" they exclaimed in unison. Well, all but Louis.

"Do I need to repeat myself? I don't remember. Trust me, if you would be put in that academy, you wouldn't remember your own name either! You want to know what they do there?! It's a nightmare!"

Then he was embarassed. He didn't usually have outbursts like that. In fact, he never did. Now they stared at him more shocked than when he took his helmet off to reveal a normal (-ish) 17 year old guy.

_Just great..._


	2. Chapter 2: Arrival

SEE CHAPTER 1 FOR DISCLAIMER

"speech"

_thoughts_

"_telepathy"_

**CHAPTER 2: Arrival**

Meanwhile a battle was raging on the ground. The zerg had already morphed a sizable hive cluster, and were going to, eventually, overrun the defenses.

"Sir, the zerg have broken through the southern barricade!"

"Thank you lieutenant. Adjutant, tell squads 5 and 7 to reinforce the location immediately!"

_Damn. If those reinforcements don't get here, were doomed.. At least they sent a ghost as well.._

"Sir!"

"Yes, what now?!"the aging admiral grumbled.

_I'm getting old for this shit..._

"Reinforcement's showed up on the radar! 15 wraiths and 7 dropships!"

_Thank god.._

"Good. Continue your work."

Unfortunately, the dropships and wraiths were being shot down y the zerg. By the time they got there only 6 wraiths and 3 dropships remained.

"Let's get outta this ship! I wanna blast those zerg!" shouted Charles.

"Wait up you.."started Rob.

"Ah glad you boys are here, the admiral wants to speak with you." said some random marine. By the looks of him, he was still a rookie who just signed up for the local militia.

"I'm sergeant Emerson, where is the admiral?"

"The admiral is in that command center over there. I'll take you there."

After a short walk, people staring at the extremely young looking ghost and some whining from Charles, they got to the command center where an older veteran greeted them and took them to meet the admiral. On the way there they took a good look at the base, the part that they were walking through of course. There were three barracks, two factories and two starports for unit production. There was also an engineering bay and an armory near the command center, which was in the middle of the base.

They walked along a corridor, went up a lift ad walked to an other room. Apparently this was where the admiral was. The door was slightly larger than the ones before, and clearly stated: NO ANAUTHORISED PERSONNEL. They were told to wait outside, while the veteran (who's mind the ghost did not search for the name because he didn't give a shit about every single marine's name)

"So remember your name, what should we call you?" asked the sergeant, who didn't want to call him ghost or you.

"My old teammates used to call me Zero, so I guess that works."

"OK."

The door opened and they were told to go in by an officer. They went in and took a look around the room. There was a large window, so that meant this was the top, a bunch of consoles around the sides, many of them with maps which were showing parts of the battlefield. A large map of all explored areas put together was in the middle of the room. It also marked key things like their buildings, units, mineral lines and a few zerg buildings which were in the darker area of the map.

The admiral looked up from the map and told an officer to take care of stuff for a moment.

"And you are?"

"Sergeant Emerson, sir. I was sent with the reinforcements"

"Very good. Any news?"

"They can't spare any more reinforcements for now. We'll have to do with what we have. How many dropships made it?"

"Only three. One exploded in the air, the other two crash landed. We could get contact with one of them. The other was static. The one we know about has a goliath and 4 marines. The goliath is damaged and the marines are wounded."

"We need to get them out of there. We need all the forces we can get."

"We can't get through. There's too many of them."

"Any spotters?" cut in Zero.

"Ah a ghost! Good you made it! That makes things easier. No spotters, yet. We have an experimental cloaking field here. It's one of the two that exist. The other is on Tarsonis. It requires a lot of energy so you can only maintain it for 3 minutes. I suggest you get to the dropship we have contact with, K-32"

"Yes sir! By the way do you have any nukes?"

"Not yet. We started building the silo as soon as we heard we'd have a ghost." _And thank god or whatever is up there for the tech to build things on the field in a short time!_ "Now get to work! The device is in the armory."

"Immediately."

_Good._

**SO? How did you like this chapter? Please review! Just click that small button down there! Thanks for all that do beforehand. For anyone interested, this battle will go on a few chapters longer, and no, this story won't be a bunch of missions of these guys. Anything else I forgot? No. Good. Oh wait! There is! I won't have a proper update time, but I'll try weekly. Have a nice day (or night, morning, whatever it is!)**


	3. Chapter 3: Rescue

**Disclaimer: see ch1**

"speech"

_thoughts_

"_telepathy"_

**CHAPTER 3: Rescue**

Zero had gone to the armory to pick up the device. The device could create a cloaking field that would be enough to get them back, but it drained a lot of energy. Once he got there and turned it on, they had to hurry.

_This is gonna be difficult._

Zero set out towards the hive cluster. It was a good 3 minute walk. All around there were dead bodies and ruined buildings. It disgusted him. Then a spine shot past him.

_FUCK!_ He mentally cursed.

A hydralisk slithered towards him from a dark alleyway. It shot an other volley of spines towards him, which (thanks to his elite training) he managed to dodge. Zero ran up onto a small platform and took aim. _Careful... I miss and I'm dead... _Before the zerg beast could come close enough to shoot at him, he shot it down. The bullet sped towards the hydralisk with psionically enhanced speed ad embedded itself in the hydra's skull. Not only that, but it was one of those special exploding bullets of his. The hydralisk screamed in pain and then it's head exploded, covering a large area in blood.

Zero decided he should check out if there were more where this came from. He walked into the alleyway and cloaked himself. After 5 minutes of walking he found out why it had been there. There was creep, this was the edge of the hive clusters. After a little while there were no buildings. Just a lone creep colony. He took care to psionically numb the creep, so it wouldn't sense him. Lot's of good ghosts were lost like that. Cloaking was good for as long as the creep didn't sense you. For Protoss this was no problem, they had their high-tech stuff and were all psychics. Zerg didn't cloak, they burrowed underground (although zerg didn't fight each other). The cloaking field took so much energy (partly), because it also had to deal with creep as well. For a psychic it was a small task, and not much more for a machine, but for a machine to do that to multiple people AND a war machine... Well, let's just say it is for a reason that only protoss used cloaking fields.

After a good five minute walk on creep, taking care not to accidentally bump into any zerg, Zero found a crater. It was actually quite easy to get down there or up from there, but zerg were all around. The remains of the dropship were scattered around in the crater. He quickly jumped down and decloaked.

"Hey, you guys! Come were getting outta here!"

All of them turned to face him and after the surprise, they talked about the details. The pilot had to be carried and needed medical treatment fast. The goliath had lost one of it's weapons and 3 marines were able to fight. The other had a large wound on his leg. They got the pilot and the marine who couldn't walk onto 'beds' ,that were made of salvaged metal, and started going. The cloaking field kept them hidden, but they had to move fast.

That was when everything went wrong. They received a transmission from the other dropship.

"To anyone hearing this, were pinned down near the south-eastern end of town. We have a siege tank, 2 marines and a firebat. We've already fortified the position with scrap metal and lost a marine. The pilot is taking his place. We can hold out for some time, but the zerg will overrun us soon. We need immediate evac!"

The leader of the recently rescued bunch (who told Zero that he could call him Cain) told him that the pilot wouldn't last if they went there, and neither would the cloaking field. The Admiral also told them to get back.

"I'm not leaving them behind. You guys take the device and get back to the base. It's not far. I'll rescue their sorry asses. Go!" commanded Zero, even, though he was not in charge.

"No! We need you here!" shouted the Admiral in fury "You will get back here, NOW!"

"No, I'm not leaving them behind."

"I'll go with you!" cut in Cain.

"You'll be the doom of us all!"

'sigh' "Let's go then, c'mon Cain!"

It took a lot of stealth to get near the location of the dropship. It was on a small peninsula, to which the entrance was barricaded by scrap metal. The 3 marines were firing madly, while the firebat dealt with anything that cam too close. The siege tank helped a lot. It was the only reason that they were still alive. Without it, even the barricade wouldn't have helped.

"How do we get there?" asked Cain as they looked down from the cliff.

"I'm not sure... Maybe if I distracted them by putting out a strong enough psionic signature for them to pick up... Yes that will work. I'll distract them and you get them out. We'll meet here." Zero pointed at a small clearing in town, from which they could easily get back to the base. Two streets came into it, which could be well defended, and a third which went straight for the base. "Once you get there, call your team to help. They should be healed by then. Defend the location until I get there. Good luck!"

"You too. See ya!" _or not _he thought grimly.

**SO... Cool, I got this chapter up. Anyone notice they seem to get longer? (sure the first was kind of an introduction but whatever) Now it's over 900 words! Anyone who reviews gets free fried muta wings!**


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